Employee monitoring software is a must-have for business owners who want to ensure that their employees are using their time at work to complete the responsibilities and tasks that have been assigned to them, rather than spending hours watching cat videos and trolling social media or, worse, engaging in reckless or malicious behavior that jeopardizes the company. User activity monitoring can provide insight into how your employees use their time each day, allowing you to identify opportunities to increase productivity and cybersecurity. Therefore, this article contains the list of some of the 10 best employee monitoring softwares.
Table of Contents
What is Employee Monitoring Software?
Employee monitoring software is a digital solution that allows organizations to monitor, record, and manage their employees’ online activities while they are on the clock. Because there are so many distractions in the modern workplace for both onsite and remote employees, especially those who use internet-connected devices to do their daily activities, the software can be effective whether you have a few employees or several hundred.
While most employees can be trusted to do the right thing, there is always the possibility that they will engage in unproductive activity on company time. Worse, employees may be insider threats, engaging in irresponsible or malevolent activity that jeopardizes your company.
List of best Employee Monitoring Softwares
1. Teramind
Teramind is not only the best employee monitoring software for security threat protection, but it is also one of the most comprehensive monitoring systems we looked at. You may monitor your employees’ emails, online meetings, file transfers, chats, clipboards, searches, and printing activity in addition to their behavior on websites, applications, and social media.
If necessary, you can also remotely operate devices, and you have access to audio and video recordings of all users’ activity. You can strengthen your organization’s security by implementing dynamic risk scoring and detecting insider threats, malicious or abusive activity, and anomalies. Additional data loss protection capabilities in the DLP plan include data fingerprinting, clipboard detection, and content-based and file-operation restrictions.
2. BambooHR
BambooHR is not your typical remote employee monitoring software. It’s essentially cloud-based HR software, but it comes with a slew of tools to help you manage and track your employees from the day you hire them to the day they leave. Employee record organization, employee benefits enrollment and tracking, document storage, application tracking, onboarding and offboarding tools, e-signature capabilities, organization charts, processes and approvals, reports, and email alerts are all included.
Further, performance management, payroll processing, employee benefits administration, and time monitoring are all options. Having access to all of this workforce data in a single, simplified platform is advantageous for managing your employees’ overall performance and experience.
3. Insightful
Insightful, formerly Workpuls, is an excellent solution for businesses who wish to monitor employee activities while yet allowing their employees some privacy. On company-owned computers, the program can be used visibly – in which case employees are aware their activities are being tracked – or stealthily – in which case employees are unaware they are being watched.
On employee-owned devices, the program can only be launched in visible mode and only while the employee is clocked in. Employees have more control over what is observed with the visible mode, and the setting for employee-owned devices ensures that they can only be tracked on company time.
Insightful includes all of the essential functionality required to monitor employees on Mac and Windows devices. It also tracks employee attendance but allows for manual entry so your employees can adjust their work hours to accurately reflect the time they worked.
4. ActivTrak
ActivTrak is a virtual employee monitoring software that is cloud-based and includes everything you need to watch your employees’ behavior, productivity, efficiency, task balance, and goals. We recommend it as the finest employee monitoring software for workforce analytics because of its complete analytics and reporting options. ActivTrak, rather than serving as stealth spyware, focuses on enhancing staff productivity and efficiency in a healthy and transparent manner.
Besides, it tracks employees’ hours, productive vs. unproductive behavior, passive vs. active behavior, mouse movements and keyboard activity (excluding keystrokes), and website and app usage. Businesses may easily track which places their employees are most productive in using its Location Insights service. This location-specific employee data is ideal for ensuring that your workforce is performing to its greatest capacity.
5. SentryPC
SentryPC is another common employee monitoring software for small organizations. It’s a cloud-hosted system with more service options than many of the employee monitoring software providers we looked at, making it a good fit for businesses of all sizes. Besides, the annual cost ranges from $69.95 for monitoring on one PC and storage of up to 500 screenshots to $9,995 for 1,000 licenses and 2,000 screenshots. Additional licenses range from $9.99 to $29.95, and screenshots are only $29.95 for the first 500. SentryPC does not provide a free trial, however you can try out a risk-free demo account.
Furthermore, SentryPC, despite its low price, provides all of the essential monitoring functions we need. You may monitor an employee’s activities and establish use limitations for each day or week by selecting their work hours. SentryPC monitoring also has geofencing capabilities, which allow you to establish a virtual gate around specific places in order to track where your staff are working. Despite the fact that this is a more advanced monitoring tool, it is included in SentryPC plans.
6. InterGuard
InterGuard is sophisticated employee monitoring software that runs in the cloud. It’s especially beneficial for tracking the productivity of your remote employees. InterGuard’s software tracks start and stop times, lunch breaks, geolocations, and idle vs. active time for firms who need to monitor personnel from a distance.
Further, the software’s six-view dashboard, which includes a chart view for executives, a user view for managers and HR staff, an alert log view for security tech, a data view, a reports and notification view, and a search view for when you’re conducting an inquiry, is appealing. The user view is the most commonly used for remote teams because it displays active, neutral, and idle times.
Apps, emails, website history and searches, social media, files, chats, print jobs, and keystrokes are all monitored by InterGuard. Data loss protection software is a very valuable feature for businesses with remote workers. This prevents and reports unlawful email or USB usage, as well as scanning data in motion and at rest to discover and prevent DLP policy violations.
7. Hubstaff
Hubstaff is the best employee productivity monitoring software for keeping track of your employees’ hours. Its one-of-a-kind feature set, which includes activity monitoring and time tracking, focuses on ensuring that your staff are doing their jobs and being paid correctly. Cleaning, gardening, consulting, manufacturing, accounting, real estate, software, design, healthcare, engineering, legal, nonprofit, e-commerce, and construction businesses can all benefit from Hubstaff.
Youโll enjoy how the software can monitor personnel both inside and outside of the office, including freelancers, field service workers, and remote staff – which is extremely useful in today’s workplace. Hubstaff is also compatible with almost any operating system (Windows, Mac, Linux, Chrome, iOS, and Android).
8. Veriato
Veriato software is a powerful employee monitoring and insider threat detection solution designed for companies in the finance, healthcare, technology, government, and industrial industries. We chose Veriato as the finest employee monitoring tool for larger enterprises because of the breadth of its monitoring features. Veriato can be used by large enterprises to monitor remote employees, assess workplace productivity, detect insider threats, avoid data theft, and perform employee investigations, including forensic investigations.
In addition, you can track apps, emails, websites, documents, user status, file transfers, chats, and keystrokes with employee monitoring solutions. Veriato also provides capabilities for detecting insider threats, which is crucial for large companies that need to safeguard sensitive information.
9. Controlio
Controlio by EfficientLab is our pick for the finest software for employee monitoring for video monitoring since it tracks employees’ behavior through screen screenshots and live video recordings. You can examine your employees’ displays in real time or watch video recordings of current or previous activities. This real-time session information is critical for businesses that require strict employee security.
After creating an account, you must download and install the software on the devices you wish to monitor. You may then access the web-based dashboard from anywhere and observe the activities of the devices. You can establish monitoring profiles for specific employees to arrange your user activity logs. Controlio is a safe platform that uses two-factor authentication.
10. Hourly
Hourly tracking software is another popular alternative for businesses that need to verify their employees’ locations, albeit it is primarily a workers’ compensation and payroll administration service.
Employees use the Hourly mobile app on their phones and tap the clock to start their working timer, which handles the majority of the location verification. Organizations can enable GPS and geofencing settings while using Hourly’s app to ensure employees are where they claim they are. Furthermore, managers can ensure that employees can only clock in once they have arrived at their assigned work area.
Conclusion
Employee monitoring software will play a crucial part in addressing the shift in employee and employer expectations in 2023, as the workplace will be more diversified and distributed than ever before. Employers, for example, want to know that their employees are productive wherever they work. Monitoring tools can reveal which work environments are most effective for each person. Employee monitoring software can track how productive employees are at different locations rather than utilizing employee hours as a criterion for success. The top choices to make should be Teramind, BambooHR and Hubstaff.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why do businesses use employee monitoring software?
Businesses use employee monitoring software to improve productivity, ensure data security, prevent time wastage, track project progress, and maintain compliance with company policies and legal regulations.
Is employee monitoring legal?
The legality of employee monitoring varies by jurisdiction. In many places, employers are legally allowed to monitor employee activities as long as certain privacy rights are respected. It’s important for businesses to be aware of the laws in their region and to communicate their monitoring practices transparently to employees.
How does employee monitoring software work?
Employee monitoring software operates by collecting data from various sources, such as computer activity, network traffic, and communication logs. This data is then analyzed and presented in the form of reports or dashboards for employers to review.
What are the benefits of using employee monitoring software?
Employee monitoring software can help businesses identify productivity bottlenecks, track project timelines, detect security breaches, reduce time wastage, and ensure employees are following company policies.
Can employee monitoring software improve productivity?
Yes, if used correctly, employee monitoring software can lead to improved productivity by identifying inefficiencies, providing insights into time management, and enabling businesses to optimize workflow processes.
Is employee monitoring software secure?
Yes, for the most part. Employee tracking software is intended to be placed on numerous computers, including a management station. To use this type of application, you must first disable your firewall. When the installation is finished, you can switch it back on. This temporarily breaches your security system, leaving your network open to viruses, Trojans, spyware, and other threats.